Arab-Byzantine Forum IV at the Society

        Specialists and fans of Arab-Byzantine coinage gathered once again at the Society on November 14 for another forum on the coinage of the eastern Mediterranean lands in the seventh and eighth centuries. More than fifteen attendees came from as far as London, Sydney, Philadelphia and Chicago, as well as New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to hear informal presentations and discuss the latest results. There were seven presentations on the agenda, in addition to mini-lectures that generated spontaneously from the discussion.
        This year's forum was organized by Society member Charles Karukstis of Charlotte, N. C., to whom the Society is most grateful.
        After opening remarks by Michael Bates of the Society, Professor Alan Walmsley of the University of Sydney began the day with a talk on "Jerash and the Early Islamic Cities in Northern Jordan." Walmsley provided a great deal of non-numismatic information which enlarged greatly our perspective of economic life during this period. He described discussed a number of specific excavation sites, and summarized the nature of seventh- and eighth-century finds in southern Bilad al-Sham (Israel and Jordan), with comments on the relations between numismatic and structural evidence.
        Harry Bone of Princeton University described "Some Coins from the Antioch Excavations in the Princeton Firestone Collection." The material from the 1932-39 excavations in the north Syrian city was published by Miles in 1948 under very general headings, without descriptions. Of the 2047 coins, some 36 were Arab-Byzantine, and 493 were post-reform coins.
        Tony Goodwin of Henfield, England continued with a talk entitled "Arab Copies - Progress and Problems." Tony's discussion continued the examination of a probable hoard of Syrian imitations that he published last year along with Marcus Phillips, and presented interesting data on the few countermarks found in the hoard, and on overstrikes as evidence for sequential and absolute dating. The hoard provides important evidence on the chronology of exportation of Byzantine issues to Bilad al-Sham.
        Roxani Margariti from Princeton University (the Society's 1998-99 Shaykh Hamad Fellow in Islamic Numismatics) presented the more spectacular examples of the Society's newest Arab-Byzantine accession, the collection of John J. Slocum (presented to the Society late last year by his son Jerry), which contains some 400 early Islamic copper coins. These including some extremely rare or extremely well-preserved Arab-Byzantine issues. A small exhibit of the coins prepared by Margariti was also available for direct inspection.
        Peter Lampinen, fresh from the Caesarea excavations in Israel, discussed some of his latest discoveries in the aptly named "New Finds from Caesarea." While this season's material needs to be linked to ongoing stratigraphic studies at the site, a number of interesting finds emerged from the current work around the South Temple platform.
        Tasha Vorderstrasse from the University of Chicago described her "New Research on Seventh and Eighth Century Coins in the Hatay Province of Turkey." The material, from excavations in the area around Antioch, is still being studied at the Oriental Institute in Chicago. The number of finds from the Umayyad period is small so far, but a number of very interesting imitative types were among the examples shown.
        Finally, Larry Silbert of Bellerose, NY, talked on "Recent Acquisitions and Market Conditions." Silbert discussed the importance of commercial channels in making new material available to numismatists, and commented on the current state of the collector market.
        Arab-Byzantine Forum V is tentatively scheduled for November 13, 1999. Anyone who might like to attend should contact Mr. Karukstis at P.O. Box 221871, Charlotte, NC 28222-1871, or by e-mail, charlie@charliek.com.


Bullowa Meeting Features Seminar Alumni

        The David M. Bullowa Memorial Conference was held at the museum on Saturday, January 16, 1998. Featured were three alumni of the 1998 Graduate Seminar.
        Melanie D. Grunow, a Ph.D. candidate at The University of Michigan, led off with a talk on "Architectura Numismatica with Figures," in which she discussed the relationship between temple types involving mainly sacrificial scenes and relief sculpture with similar motifs.
        Daniel F. Hobbins, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Notre Dame, discussed "The economics of coinage reform in 14th-century France." He dealt with the royal coinage of France in the mid-fourteenth century and its monetary, political and social implications..
         "Messages and the Market: the Portrait Medals of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II" was the title of a presentation by Susan Spinale, a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University. She dealt with pieces by five artists, including a previously unknown example from the collection of an ANS member.
        The conference was followed by a reception at the museum and an informal dinner, complete with belly dancing, at The Magic Carpet in Greenwich Village.
        This was the ninth seminar conference and the fourth to be presented as the David M. Bullowa Conference. The Society is grateful to Catherine Bullowa-Moore for her support.

        
Society's 1999 Huntington Medal to John Davenport

        The Archer M. Huntington Medal Award for 1999, will be presented at the ANS on Saturday, March 13, at 3:00 PM. The recipient of the Society's award for "outstanding achievement in numismatic scholarship" will be John S. Davenport, of Mount Dora, Florida, who is well-known for his many works on Thalers and related coinages, a series on which he began publishing in 1947. His books number well over two dozen, several of which are known in more than one edition.
        Mr. Davenport, who was a professor of English at Knox College, began collecting coins in 1921, and "never professed to being a scholar." His books have nonetheless become fundamental for students of the coinage they survey.

John Kleeberg to Deliver Thompson Memorial Lecture
        The presentation of the award will be accompanied by the Margaret Thompson Memorial Lecture, delivered on the occasion by John M. Kleeberg, ANS Curator of Modern Coins and Currency, on "Coin Debasement and Countermarks: the Silver Gulden of Germany's 'Kleine Kipper- und Wipper-Zeit,' 1667-1693." The meeting will conclude with a reception. Members and the public are cordially invited to attend the ceremonies and talk and to peruse an exhibit of Prof. Davenport's major works which will be on display in the library.

Turkish Treasures Exhibited at ANS

        Some 200 Turkish coins, decorations, medals, and paper money were brought together in an ANS exhibit commemorating the 700th anniversary of the foundation of the Ottoman empire. The exhibit opened at the New York International Numismatic Convention December 4-6, 1998, and then moved to the Society's East Hall where it was on view until February 6, 1999. It was organized by volunteer Kenneth MacKenzie and Islamic Curator Michael Bates, and mounted at the show by Elena Stolyarik. The exhibit also served to display some of the riches of the Jem Sultan Turkish collection donated to the Society in 1997 by Olivia Lincoln.
        The exhibit included six cases: a survey of Turkish coins thoughout the ages, from tenth-century China to sixteenth-century Algeria, followed by a case explaining the origins of the Ottoman state and its coinage in the fourteenth century. The coinage of the empire was divided into "Imperial" coinage, showing the evolution of coinage at the capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul), and coinage "in the Empire" showing the wide variety of coinage in the different countries under the Ottoman flag, from Algeria to Serbia and Iraq. The industrialization of the coinage in the nineteenth century filled a case, and the last case showed spectacular examples of decorations and medals, with an actual firman partially in gold ink granting the medal for the Hijaz railway to one of the major contributors.

Programs Devoted to Subject
        To bring together Ottoman experts before the exhibit's close, a meeting on February 6 was scheduled with five speakers on different aspects of Turkish coinage, including Ottoman. The speakers were to include Bates, MacKenzie, Gregory Cole, Emmet McDonald, and Elena Frangakis-Syrett.
        In connection with the exhibit, the Society co-sponsored a colloquium at the NYINC show, organized by William Warden and William Spengler, Chairs of the Society's Commitees for Islamic and for South Asian Coins. The speakers included Kenneth M. MacKenzie, on the coinage of Ottoman Turkey; Wayne G. Sayles, on the eleventh and twelfth century Atabeg coinages; Spengler, on the coinage of the eastern Islamic world from the eleventh to thirteenth centuries; and Admiral Sohail Ahmad Khan, on the coinage of the Delhi sultans.

Saltus Medal to Stevens-Sollman, Syson Speaks on Renaissance Medals

        On Saturday, February 13, Jeanne Stevens-Sollman received the 1999 J. Sanford Saltus Award for Signal Achievement in the Art of the Medal at a meeting at the Society's Audubon Terrace headquarters. Luke Syson of the British Museum delivered the Stephen K. Scher address at the meeting on the subject "Holes and Loops: The Collecting and Display of Medals in Renaissance Italy." A retrospective exhibit of the work of Stevens-Sollman is on exhibit in the Society's East Exhibit Hall through May 16.
        Stevens-Sollman is recognized for a lifetime of medallic sculpture in a citation prepared for the event which notes, "The American medal, like other art forms, derives in large part from European antecedents and influences. There has long been, however, an impulse to imbue a specifically American quality into works, through the use of informal sculpting, a crafts-like approach to production, and an emphasis on subjects such as the natural world and indigenous culture. This approach can be noted in the medals of the nineteenth-century sculptors Olin Levy Warner and Augustus Saint-Gaudens and their early twentieth-century followers Hermon MacNeil and, especially, James Earle Fraser.
        "Of the current generation of medalists, the artist who most fully exemplifies a distinctively American approach is Jeanne Stevens-Sollman. Her work is bold, original and sophisticated while maintaining an aura of earthy simplicity. She incorporates elements of current international medallic innovations and concerns while keeping her work tightly focused and recognizably personal.
        "Many aspects of Stevens-Sollman's art can be seen in her 1987 piece Wool Breeds. The subject matter is personal as well as universal: the artist maintains her own flock of sheep at her rural Pennsylvania home. The interface of the lettering with the subject shows the concern evident in her work for the integration of appropriate legends and fonts into the overall design of the medal. The light incuse of the reverse combined with lettering that is retrograde but in relief serves as an ironic numismatic reference while lending the piece a tactile softness appropriate to its subject.
        "Her mask-like construction, Through a Dog's Eyes, shows the influence on Stevens-Sollman of her teacher, John Cook, in its freedom of form and medium and its evocation of atavistic and amuletic objects. A close examination shows it to be truly her own work, with its combination of personally meaningful subjects and, especially, its gentle ironic humor.
        "History, current artistic concerns, and personal life come together in Stevens-Sollman's 1996 work Dog House in the Wind. As a reliquary, the piece derives from a tradition of sculptural metalwork older than the medal as an art form. As a multipart medal, it responds to the recent development of the multiple-piece medal, exemplified in the work of the 1986 Saltus recipient Kauko Räsänen. In its essence, however, the work is clearly a personal artistic statement, commemorating the life of a pet Labrador from a puppy in the cradle through his career as a retriever. In its structure as a ten-piece puzzle, its use of a buried bone as a hidden keystone, and its perceptive mingling of the natural and personal spheres, it exemplifies the creativity and gentle humor which make it instantly recognizable as the work of Jeanne Stevens-Sollman."
        The citation concludes, "In the eighty years since its first bestowal, the J. Sanford Saltus Award has recognized signal achievement in the art of the medal, originally among artists of this country alone, and for the past two decades in the world at large. In its presentation this year to Jeanne Stevens-Sollman we honor the achievement of a medallist who, while fully participating in the development of the medium as a whole, has remained a distinctively individual and American artist."

Syson Presents Scher Lecture
        Luke Syson, who is in charge of medals at the British Museum, is a specialist in the art of the Italian Renaissance, especially the portrait. He began work on the subject of his Scher lecture in response to questions by students concerning the holes and loops apparent in many Renaissance medals. His work on this question drew on archival sources, contemporary paintings, as well as the medals themselves for clues as to their original use and display and the role in which they played in the artistic culture of their day.

Special Exhibition in NYC
        In conjunction with this year's presentation of the Saltus Award, the Medialia … Rack and Hamper Gallery in midtown Manhattan is mounting a show entitled "The J. Sanford Saltus Awards into the Next Century; the Award Recipients, 1990-1999." Included are works by Keiichi Uryu, Eugene Daub, Mico Kaufman, Ewa Olszewska-Borys, Marianne Letterie, Alex Shagin, Nicola Moss, Leonda Finke, and Jeanne Stevens-Sollman. This exhibit remains on view through May 31 at the gallery, located on the fourth floor of 335 West 38th St. For hours and appointment, visitors should call (212) 971-0953 or contact medialia@compuserve.com.

Donnelly to Retire at End of February

        Longterm ANS Receptionist, Florence Donnelly will retire at the end of February capping a career with the Society that reaches back to August 1979. Known as Florence to staff and visitors alike, she has provided the initial contact over the past two decades for those coming to the museum to work in the collections or use the library.
        Florence has also handled the Society's mail order book sales during the same period, dealing with subscription agencies and assuring dealers that their orders are filled quickly and correctly. The ANS is one of the largest non-profit publisher/venders of numismatic publications.
        With the growth in frequency and variety of public meetings at the ANS, Florence has added a distinct public relations aspect to her core receptionist responsibilities, helping our conference visitors, often on their initial visit to the ANS, to enjoy their time with us and feel right "at home."
        One of the added pleasure of Florence's career here at the ANS was the opportunity to employ the youngest of her three daughters, Erin, as a part-time Photo Dept. clerk during the early 1980s.
        Florence has, since the beginning of 1997, worked an abbreviated week, an adjustment made possible by the advent of a new, automated phone system at the ANS. With her retirement, the Society will revert to a full-time position, with additional responsibilities based on our expanding public presence and the impending move to a new location.

Society Medals and Coins Featured at French Saint-Gaudens Exhibit

        Nine pieces from the ANS Collection are featured in a major exhibit on the sculpture of Augustus Saint-Gaudens on view at two French museums this year. The opening of the exhibit at the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, on February 11 included the participation of the USA Ambassador to France, Felix Rohatyn. The illustrated catalogue of the exhibit features an article on Saint-Gaudens's coins and medals by Barbara A. Baxter, ANS alumna and guest curator of our 1987 exhibit, "The Beaux-Arts Medal in America." Baxter is now with the Education Department of the Baltimore Museum of Art.
        Among the ANS medals in the exhibit are the unique cast trial of the award medal for the 1893 Columbian Exhibition, rejected after objections in the U.S. Congress over its 'indecency.' Other medals comprise a silver example of Saint-Gaudens's 1889 George Washington medal, his rare Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Medal, and a medal privately made and distributed to guests at a masque held at his home in Cornish, New Hamphire, in 1905. The coins lent by the ANS are the only coins included in the exhibit; they are two examples of the High Relief Double Eagle (both Breen 7359), one 1907 business strike (Breen 7363), and two examples of the 1907 Eagle (Breen 7094 and 7097, respectively).
        The loan was arranged by ANS Curator of Medals Alan Stahl. Other American institutions lending to the exhibit include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art, the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Homesite, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. After the show closes in Toulouse on May 30, it will move to the Musée de la Coopération Franco-Américaine at Blérancourt, where it will run from June 25 through October 18, 1999.

Thaymar Inces Joins ANS Staff

        Thaymar Inces joined the Society's Business Office staff on February 2. A native of Barbados, Ms. Inces attended Erasmus Hall High School in New York City and received her BA in journalism from Long Island University.
        While at LIU, she interned at NBC studios, gaining valuable experience in the corporate environment. She views her new position at the ANS as a challenge and a learning opportunity. Among her duties will be those currently held by Florence Donnelly who will retire at the end of February.
        Ms. Inces interestare many and varied, including singing, writing short stories, palying volleyball or pool, and bowling.

ANS Day of the Etruscans

        On Saturday, February 27, 1999 the ANS will once again host The Day of the Etruscans, a meeting of The Etruscan Foundation. This event has been very successful in the past years and has attracted a diverse public of scholars and collectors, interested in Etruscan archaeology and in coins. The program will start at 1.30 p.m. to allow time for viewing the exhibits of ANS Etruscan coins and rare books on Etruscan coinage. At 2 p.m. Professor Stephen Steingräber of the University of Tokyo will speak on: "The Etruscans in Japan: Etruscan Art in Japanese Collections," followed by Elena Colonna, CNR, Istituto per l'Archeologia Etrusco-Italica (Tuscia), on: "Il santuario rupestre di Norchia/The Rock-cut Tombs at Norchia."
        A reception, sponsored by the Etruscan Foundation, will follow the meeting.

Michael Hodder Groves Forum Speaker

        Numismatic research specialist Michael Hodder will address the Spring Meeting of the Society on Saturday, April 10, 1999. His topic for this, the second annual Groves Forum in American Numismatics, is "Western American Assay Bars Revisited." The written version of this paper is scheduled for publication in the 1999 issue of the Society's AJN. A loan exhibition on the subject will be on view in the East Gallery only on the day of the meeting.
        Mr. Hodder is currently a numismatic consultant to Stack's, the New York coin firm, where he specializes in American numismatics. Following receipt of his MA in history from the City University of New York in 1976, he completed doctoral course work at the University of California, Berkeley in medieval French institutional history and the history of medieval English law. He attended the ANS Graduate Seminar in Numismatics in 1978 and two years later joined Sotheby's NY, where he became de facto head of the Coin Department. He then went on to Spink & Son before moving to Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, home of Bowers and Merena, where he served as Director of Research until 1992.

Hodder Widely Published
        A prolific author, Mr. Hodder enjoys an extensive and steadily growing bibliography covering a variety of subjects. His research focuses on, but is by no means exclusive to, American colonial and early federal coinage issues. Historian of the ANA for six years, he served as Editor, with Carl Carlson, of the ANA Centennial Anthology published in 1991. He is a Contributing Editor to The Numismatist and was U.S. Contributing Editor for the Society's Numismatic Literature, 1990-92. He has been a frequent contributor to The Numismatist, the Colonial Newsletter, where he also serves as Associate Editor, and Coin World, as well as the Society's journal. On three occasions, in 1989, 1991, and 1992, he has been on the program of the ANS's Coinage of the Americas Conference.
        While at Bowers and Merena, Mr. Hodder co-authored three books with David Bowers, The Norweb Collection: An American Legacy in 1987, the Standard Catalogue of Encased Postage Stamps in 1989, and A Basic Guide to U.S. Commemorative Coins in 1992. More recently, he served as Research Associate for Mr. Bowers' American Coin Treasures and Hoards, published in 1997.

Groves Forum
        The Groves Forum in American Numismatics, inaugurated in 1998, provides the Society the opportunity to present speakers or panels on topics exploring North American coins, currency, and related artifacts. The ANS is committed to an active schedule of public programs on a variety of numismatic subjects. Through annual gifts and endowed lectureships, the Society now presents a major address or conference at the museum each month of the year except July and August, the period of the Graduate Seminar program.

1999 Fowler Lecture
by Michel Amandry

        Michel Amandry, Directeur des Collections Spécialisées de la Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in Paris, curator of the coin collections of the Cabinet des Médailles, will give the Second Annual Harry W. Fowler Memorial Lecture on September 25, 1999 at 3 p.m. at the ANS old quarters at Audobon Terrace. He is an old friend of the ANS, elected Associate Member in 1971 and Corresponding Member in 1984. He was the Visiting Scholar at the ANS Graduate Seminar in 1984.
        Michel Amandry is a great specialist of Roman Provincial coinage, well known for his book Le Monnayage des Duovirs Corinthiens (1988) and for his numerous articles on the coins North Africa and Cyprus. He is one of the authors of Roman Provincial Coinage (1992) with Andrew Burnett and Pere Pau Ripolles. The topic of his lecture will be announced later but mark your calendar!

First Annual Krause-Mishler World Coins Forum

        The American Numismatic Society has received a generous donation to fund an annual Krause-Mishler World Coins Forum devoted to topics in modern numismatics excluding the U.S. The ANS has always had a very active public meeting and publications program devoted to pre-federal and United States coinage; after all, one of the most actively studied areas in pre-federal coinage, counterfeit halfpence, begins with a lecture by Charles Wyllys Betts at the Society in 1886. The ANS published many of the classic works on U.S. coinage in the early twentieth century, such as Miller on the coinage of Connecticut and David Bullowa's work on commemorative coins. After the Second World War, the Society continued to publish much good work on pre-federal issues, highlighted by the seminal studies of Noe, Newman, and Breen. The Bicentennial provided the occasion for an extensive exhibit on pre-federal money and an accompanying volume; this laid the foundation for the Coinage of the Americas Conference series, which has now resulted in more than a dozen volumes, mostly on U.S. coinage. This new Krause-Mishler forum finds its complement in the Society's annual Groves Forum, devoted to topics in American numismatics.

ANS Supports Varied Research
        Research in U.S. and the related pre-federal areas are, in short, in excellent shape. The Society would like to build up a similar strength as a forum for research in the other modern areas. The Society has always been strong as a center for research on Latin American coinage: work published by the ANS in this area include such researchers as Nesmith, Buttrey, Hubbard, Flatt, and Lasser. The Society hopes to build on and continue this strength. It would also like to encourage research in modern Europe. Herbert Erlanger did a number of studies on coins and medals of Nuremberg; Henry Grünthal had a remarkably broad grasp of the numismatics of modern Europe; Mark Salton has also published in this area; and John Davenport's catalogues and publications are widely appreciated. But there has never been as much published in the ANS monographs and the journals on modern Europe as there has been on Latin America and the United States.
        Fortunately, the recent funding of an annual Krause-Mishler series in world numismatics should bring the Society into contact with researchers doing work in this field. The Krause-Mishler catalogues have simplified life for dealers and collectors. Furthermore, the Chicago International Coin Fair, which is also owned by Krause Publications, has become one of the prime centers for world coins in the U.S. The Society hopes to tap into this interest with this new annual forum, which will cover world numismatics, from 1601 to the present day – the same area covered by the Krause-Mishler catalogues.

Menzel Inaugural Speaker
        The ANS is honored to begin the series with a lecture by Sewell H. Menzel. Dr. Menzel is a long-time researcher on Latin American cob coins, and was the researcher who attributed the AP coins to Panama. He will inaugurate the series with a talk on Spanish colonial numismatics.


ANS COINS AT MMA
New Greek Galleries
Open April 20

        On April 20, 1999, The Metropolitan Museum of Art reopens its renovated Greek Galleries, "one of the most majestic and beloved spaces in the Museum – including the grand vaulted gallery off the Great Hall" in the words of Philippe de Montebello, Director of the MMA. The Gallery for Greek Art of the Fifth Century will show the artistic progression from the time of the Persian Wars to the second half of the fifth century B.C. The MMA's vases, terracottas, bronzes, jewelry and gems, will be supplemented by a showcase displaying 82 coins from the ANS collection, selected for their historical, esthetic and iconographical qualities.
        Among the many events organized in conjunction with the reopening of the new galleries, Carmen Arnold-Biucchi will give a lecture on "Masterpieces in Miniature: The Art of Ancient Greek Coins," on Friday May 7, at 4 p.m. at the Uris Auditorium of the MMA.